


But we've wandered many a weary foot

by ZaliaChimera



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Affection, Angst, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Introspection, M/M, New Year's Eve, New Years, Post-Canon, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:07:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28462854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZaliaChimera/pseuds/ZaliaChimera
Summary: There would normally be a plethora of parties for Oscar to attend at New Year's, and the invitations have certainly piled up. But this year, Oscar's heart isn't it. He doesn't fit anymore.
Relationships: Zolf Smith/Oscar Wilde
Comments: 30
Kudos: 68





	But we've wandered many a weary foot

There would normally be a plethora of parties for Oscar to attend at New Year's. Indeed, even now, the invitations have piled up on the table next to the door, a drift of expensive cream cardstock and gilded lettering. _The Duke and Duchess of Rutland request the pleasure of the company of Sir Oscar Wilde_ and _You are cordially invited to Magdalen College, Oxford_ and other such insipid formalities.

And once he would have been thrilled. It had been a game; how many parties could he attend on one evening, and he'd once managed a respectable fifteen although one of his compatriots at the time had insisted that being dragged into a public house for a rather raucous singalong did not count.

By rights, this should be the biggest New Year's party of his life. The first New Year celebration since the old world ended and the new began, since the infection was destroyed, and the world saved. He can hear people already, out in the streets. There are fireworks, and music and the shouts and cheers of people just glad to see another year.

"You could go out, you know," Zolf says, and the words rumble through Oscar's chest when he's pressed up against the dwarf comfortably. "I've seen the invitations. You're not short of places to be."

"You could come with me," Oscar hums in response, although he makes no move to stand or pull away.

Zolf huffs softly and shifts so that he can look Oscar in the eye. Oscar rolls over on the bed to make it easier and reaches out to smooth a wild strand of Zolf's beard smooth.

"I mean it," Zolf says. "Doesn't have to be just you and me. I don't mind if you want to go off and celebrate. You've earned it."

"You have too," Oscar replies. "And I am quite happy here," he adds quickly, in case Zolf thinks he's being arch.

He can see the scepticism in Zolf's face and honestly, it's like the dwarf had thought that Oscar would just immediately return to being who he had been before. The idle dilettante that he had been and had pretended to be for so long. And he knows that isn't true. Zolf knows him better than that, trusts him too much to think that, but it still rankles because... well, part of him had *expected* to return to that to be able to slip into that skin as easy as breathing. 

Instead he had found it ill-fitting. 

"I don't want to hold you back," Zolf says, his lips searching for a firm line but all Oscar can see is the softness, the concern.

Oscar smiles. "You never have. I-" He pauses to assemble his words into an order that will work. "As arbitrary as the date is, I don't want to spend this symbol with people who I don't trust," he says carefully. "It means too much."

He doesn't want to sing the Auld Lang Syne with people who weren't there, who will never know, not really know, what they went through during those two years of hell. He can't pull on the right mask to deal with that, with the feelings that are sure to come, messy and acrid and not the flippant joy that they should be.

Zolf touches his cheek, curls a strand of white hair around his finger. "I'm not trying to get rid of you. Just whatever makes you happy."

"It's not about being happy," Oscar replies. "It's about trusting you. I want to sit with you, and drink wine and cry and watch the fireworks out of the window and _breathe_. Gods, I want to breathe."

"Then we'll do that," Zolf says, and underneath it is relief and affection and love that makes Oscar want to start early on the crying. "You and me."

"Always," Oscar agrees. "Against the world."

"For the world," Zolf replies. "But mostly, for us."

Wilde smiles, and he can feel the phantom pull of skin where the scar had been. It never quite left him, even though physically he seems unmarked. "Yes. For us."


End file.
